Hearings regarding the communist infiltration of the motion picture industry. Hearings before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, first session. Public law 601 (section 121, subsection Q (1947)

440 COMMUNISM IN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY to license their material to the screen, to the radio, and to tlie book publishers. The American Authors Authority is a plan whereby the four jiuilds of the leajjuo could put into oijeratiou Ihis licensing program. It also involves the principle of separation of copyrights and the reversion of copyrights. At the present time when a man sells material to tlie screen the major studios usually require that they be listed as the corporate author of the property, a complete legal fiction, but they insist on it and the vi^riters usually agree. When pictures are remade in Hollywood, as they often are, the original writers do not share in the profits of the remake, whereas in the theater a man shares in the continuing profits from his play as long as the copyright exists. We think it is a very laudable thing. Q. Would that mean, Mr. Lavery, that the authority would copyright the production or the work in its own name? — A. There have been various proposals in that respect. In the early discussion of the plan it was proposed that individual authors should assign to the authority as trustee their copyright in order to clarify and unify the position of the authority in enforcing authors' rights. That is not a hard-and-fast principle. It is a matter of argument between counsel at the present time. It may well be in the final analysis the individual will hold onto his copyright or there might be a joint trusteeship of the individual copyright and the authority. However, it works out, the authority is simply an attorney in fact, a trustee, designed to restore to the individual writers so many of his rights which are now held by book publishers, advertising agencies, and motion-picture studios. Q. May I ask this : W^ould the autliority if it were set up under some plan or another because of the bargaining contract that you have with the publishers include independent writers? — A. No. That has been discussed in committees both east and west. Obviously, you can .see. Senator, that if the authority was to work it would only be good to the degree that everybody was in. In other words, it isn't planned to keep anybody out. This is a plan involving the participation of all writers in all fields. Incidentally, there is no thought of group control of content of scripts. Let me assure you that writers are a pretty hard bunch to unify from any one proposition from the time of day to the time of night. No guild to my knowledge has ever attempted and could not attempt to bring about group control of content of property. That is simply not an issue in this case. It is a trusteeship designed to restore to individual writers many of their rights which are now held by other people because it is true the writer has sold them away. Q. Would it be along the lines of the American Society of Composers and Publishers? — A. Well, that is not as good as a parallel as it might be. It is perfectly true some columns have referred to the AAA as a writers' ASCAP. But ASCAP is a thing that fits the musicians. Ours isn't .something that tits the musicians. The closest parallel is how the Dramatists Guild functions in the theater. In the Dramatists Guild they hold individual copyrights. Their material is only licensed to Broadway producers. When Broadway dramatists market their wares to the screen they sell them, but because they have been a part of a licensing program in the theater they would like a licensing program for pictures. So far as the studios are concerned they would not be hurt financially at all. They might have to pay something out on a remake when they make a remake once every 7 years, and the writer who originally conceived it would participate once more, but actually it won't hurt them very nuich. Q. Who, if you know, originated this idea within your group? — A. Oh, that was on the agenda of our Screen Writers' board for a long time. I think, without taking any credit away from Jim Cain. I think I really kicked the ball off in an article in the Screen Writer called Time for Decision, which was an explanation of the licensing program. But we had a subcommittee which had been considering this project for some time. Q. Would you mind telling us, if you have no objections, who were the members of the subcommittee, if you know? — A. I haven't got them here, but I can get them and send them to the committee. I think it was either seven or nine people on that subcommittee. We had been discussing it for a long time. I miglit point out in passing that when the project was submitted to the Authors League council in New York recently they unanimously referred the proposal to the four guilds for study, and took the opportunity of rededicating themselves then and there to the principle that licensing of material is to be preferred to sale, and that separation of copyrights and the reversion of rights are sound principles that we shall all stand for at all times.